Cemwood: Mineralized Wood Chips for Innovative Building Solutions

CEMWOOD GmbH from Magdeburg in Saxony-Anhalt produces mineralized wood chips for dry and levelling fills, which are used in new buildings and renovations. The mineralized wood chips are produced in a process in which added minerals are absorbed by the wood. When the chips come out of the mixer, they are laid, turned and dried for 2 to 3 weeks. The finished material can then be packaged.

Stable bonding of wood and cement without chemicals

Actually, wood and cement don't want to work together. Wood contains substances such as sugar, phenols and alcohol, which prevent cement from hydrating. Until now, a lot of salts and chemicals had to be used to make the bond between wood and cement possible. CEMWOOD has found a way to create a bond between wood and cement without chemicals and accelerators. The company comes from the aggregates industry and works in the field of absorber elements for noise protection. It very quickly became clear that if you wanted to build sound absorbers for Deutsche Bahn, you would need lengthy planning approval procedures and the material would have to be tested for other possible uses. This is how the products for timber construction were developed, with which CEMWOOD has been on the market since 2019. The range includes the two products CW 1000 and CW 2000 for leveling applications. In the past, mineral fills were used in construction, which are easy to crumble and move. Wood has the advantage that it does not crumble when mineralized, it is not porous and retains its components. It creates a clean surface and lies like a foundation. You can drive over it with a wheel loader, for example, without it sinking away; it remains in place without an edge. It's actually the same issue as with a railroad embankment: granite stones without a wall finish under the rails can withstand trains weighing several tons without slipping.

Mineralized wood chips from CEMWOOD act like a microblock

The mineralized wood chips from CEMWOOD form a micro-block of small stones that interlock and wedge together and can therefore no longer move. A huge advantage for the floor structure. If you use material that settles and crumbles, the floor will also settle at some point. This risk does not exist with mineral wood chips, as the secure substrate allows the floor to be built up further. Furthermore, the advantageous properties make processing easier, the wood chips can withstand running over without shifting after stripping. This is also good for DIY enthusiasts, who can do practically nothing wrong.

Improve CO2 balance on the construction site with CEMWOOD

The mineralized wood chips are produced without chemicals. We use PFC-certified softwood from sustainable forestry, not recycled wood, but chopped from round timber. The CO2 that the tree has stored in the forest should be preserved as far as possible and enter the house with the mineralized wood chips, where it serves as a CO2 store. Working with ecological wood is particularly interesting for CEMWOOD because of its negative CO2 balance. Wood in the forest stores around 900 kg of CO2, the wood chips are dried in biogas plants and renewable energies are generally used for the entire process. This means that little of the 900 kg of CO2 is tapped, and after transportation and freight, which must also be shown in accordance with the EPD regulation, there are still 207 kg of CO2 per square metre of fill on the construction site. In contrast, other conventional products always have a CO2 plus. As long as something is moved and a sink is built, you end up in negative territory. If you think about the new subsidy programs, which include the question of how a house can be built that only has a CO2 load of 24 kg/sqm, you quickly come to the conclusion that wood should be used. Built into the floor, it is invisible and still an excellent CO2 store. An ecological building balance can then be achieved despite the installation of large windows, for example. Nowadays, it is important to save on every corner for the sake of the environment and to weigh up which measures make sense.